Comcast Rolls Out New xFi Features Including 'Timed Pause' and 'Safer Search'

By Eric Schaefer
|
Aug 03, 2017

Internet

Comcast Rolls Out New xFi Features Including 'Timed Pause' and 'Safer Search'

When we launched xFi earlier this year, we wanted to give customers a new way to see and control one of the most important technologies in their home – their Wi-Fi network. So far, xFi usage has exceeded our expectations. We’ve seen high engagement around things like password recovery, profile creation, and parental controls. We also said xFi would be a platform for future innovation. Based on customer feedback, we’re announcing a new set of features that will give customers even more options to manage their digital home.

Timed Pause:

xFi already gives users the option of pausing Wi-Fi access on their home network by device or user. Now, we’re adding the flexibility to be able to set that pause quickly and easily for a certain amount of time – 30 minutes, one hour, or two hours. We think it will be a convenient option for parents who want to get their kids to go outside and play, clean their rooms, or go read a book instead of staring at a screen.

Safer Searches:

We’re also enhancing Parental Controls to include protective search settings for Google, Bing, and YouTube. Doing so helps limit access to inappropriate or mature images, videos, and search results, which should give parents more peace of mind that their younger children are only looking at age-appropriate content online. The following third-party settings will be applied to user profiles that have the xFi Parental Controls option enabled:

Google SafeSearch: On

Bing SafeSearch: Strict

YouTube Restricted Mode: On

Notification Center:

This new feature allows customers to see real-time notifications about activity on their Wi-Fi network. For example, if children have friends over and a new iPad or Android phone logs onto the Wi-Fi network, the parent will see an update in the notification center and can either assign that device to one of their children’s profiles or assign it to the Guest profile. Notifications don’t only apply to devices. They can also provide alerts about any changes impacting network access such as a change to the Wi-Fi password or to the name of the Wi-Fi network. The Notification Center can be accessed by selecting the bubble icon either at the top of the screen in the app and via the website. Customers can also opt into receiving notifications via text or email by selecting the gear icon in the notification center.

What’s New:

To help spread the word about these new features, we’ve added an introduction to them immediately following the sign in process for the xFi mobile app and website. Going forward, we’ll continue to highlight new xFi product updates and features this way.

Because xFi is cloud-based, we can roll out innovative new services in real-time, making the Wi-Fi experience even better and safer. Our engineers and designers are already hard at work listening to customer feedback and creating the next set of features we hope they’ll love.

We’d like to hear from you, if you could personalize or make a change to your personal Wi-Fi experience, what would it be? Feel free to share your comments and/or questions with us on @XFINITY